Reckoning

  The idea of having Evelyn in my mind was more than a little scary, but I knew this was the only way we were going to get to the bottom of the story. "Okay," I said.

  Evelyn instructed me to sit down and meditate for a few minutes while she prepared some ritual tea. I sat cross-legged on the floor and did some breathing exercises that we'd been taught in circle. I would show her, Tàth meànma... bring it on! She returned for me a few minutes later and indicated that I should come to the kitchen. I got up an followed her.

  "Drink it all," she said, pointing at a huge cup of tea. This stuff was nasty. Seriously nasty. It tasted like I was licking a slimy, insect-infested tree. But I gulped it back, determined to show no sign of weakness. She drank one herself, and I saw her grimace slightly. When we had gotten this down, we sat cross-legged on the polished wood floor, we took each other's hands, and put our foreheads together. "Relax," she said. "Just breathe."

  At first I just felt my butt getting sore and heard the hum of the refrigerator.

  I became gradually aware that I wasn't in the kitchen anymore. I wasn't sure where we were. It

  might have been on the shore because I thought I could hear the sound of the ocean. The ground was soft, like cool, damp sand.

  "Come, Alisa." Evelyn's voice was somewhere in my mind---not in sound. I could feel the words. I started walking along, not sure where to go. Then I saw that Evelyn was besides me. I could tell that she was somehow in control of the experience, that she was the guide. What came next was a weird mix of images---a falling of furniture, the sound of splintering wood and ripping fabric. A storm. A baby. Evelyn---or both of us---was holding a baby. Sorcha was her name---Sorcha...Sarah...my mother. Evelyn led me away from this image. There was an overwhelming love of the Goddess. I could feel her power all around me, especially in the ocean. And I felt walls---anger, sadness, terrible loss---a father, a mother, a sister named Tioma, also named Jessica, killed in a car accident, a husband dying quietly in his sleep, a daughter gone forever... unbearable sadness... We were leaving Evelyn, and Evelyn was coming into me. Evelyn drank up my life, taking in everything. She saw me, at three years old, trying to understand my father's explanation that my mother was gone and the she was never coming back. She saw my life in Texas---the long flatness of the land and the constant warmth of the sun. Then New York State, Widow's Vale, so cold and bleak and lonely.

  I felt her close attention to the whirlwind of events that followed---discovering Wicca, my fears at seeing what my magick could do, my hospitalization. Finding my mother's Book of Shadows and realizing I was a blood witch. As we came to the point where I was standing alone as the dark wave approached, linked to Morgan through the brach, I felt her speeding, falling through my mind. This she couldn't take in enough of, and she could hardly believe what she was seeing. She couldn't get to everything I learned through Morgan, but the power she saw here was unlike anything she had ever encountered. She saw me finish the spell as the dark wave closed in, and I felt her pride.

  There was an interested pause as she caught a flash of my strange dreams about Gloucester and the mermaid. I felt her mind hooking onto the images and processing them in some way. And I was telekinetic? Sparks of surprise as she saw objects falling, flying breaking... After that, her emotions changed, softened. I came to something raw within her. She felt for me as I returned to the house where no on understood what I had seen or been through. She was with me on the floor at Hunter's as I wept full of frustration and pain. Then she saw me running away, coming to her, and how rejected I felt. Her guilt was thick, smothering. Images of my mother flickered through our minds.

  She was moving faster now, through the events of the last few days. We came to Charlie---my ripple of excitement at meeting him, our kiss in the library. I cringed---how embarrassing! The book. That was what she wanted to see. Finally we faced the book with its strange green print. She pulled on close to it and read the pages. What was odd was that now I could see even more writing that had been invisible before, along with the passages that I had been able to uncover. Telekinesis... she was thinking again,... uncontrollable magick...uncontrollable... the word was making her uncomfortable.

  Then she saw what I had concluded---what I had asked Hunter to look into---what Ardán Rourke had suggested... that she also suffered from telekinesis. There was no ghost. No Oona. No...

  Everything was rushing back at me, a rush of gravity pressing on my head, making my stomach churn. I wanted to get up--- to move around, to stretch and feel the blood flowing through my veins. But she put a hand on my shoulder. "Sit," she said. "It catches up with you." I sat. It caught up with me. I wondered if I was going to barf. "You," she said, "you're telekinetic?"

  I nodded and steadied myself.

  "And the Seeker is trying to find out if it is hereditary?" I nodded again. "He thinks it may be passed down by first born females. Like my mother, me... and you." I looked at Evelyn. "Think about it," I said softly. "When did you have the most problems with Oona? When something bad happened? When you were upset or confused?

  That's when it happens to me."

  No answer. She stared at some tiny birds that had come to eat at a bird feeder outside her window.

  "What you saw in the book," Evelyn said, "I understood what it was saying. The passage suggests that Oona performed a spell---probably a bit of magick. The result brought telekinesis into our family, starting with Máirin."

  "What else did it say?" I asked, my voice hoarse. "There is no cure---at least, not that the writer knows of. The attacks are caused by repressed emotions, so the only solution is not to bottle them up. The more they are kept under pressure, the greater the explosions."

  'What about the missing pages?"

  "The spellwriter admits to ripping out any pages relating to a description of telekinesis. Later in life she regretted it. She spent many years investigating the problem, with only some success." "But why did she destroy them?" I asked, shaking my head. "I don't get it." "All good witches pride themselves on control." Evelyn sighed. "Rowanwand especially. We rely on the power that our knowledge gives us and the control we have over it. When a witch's control is in question, his or her power may be reined in. Most of us will do anything to avoid that fate, even lie when we are ill or weak. The woman who wrote these words was smart enough to know that if her own fear and pride could actually cause her to tear out pages in a book that described a family affliction, there was a good chance that one of her descendants might do the same. So she hid her writing and spelled the book so that it could be found by the right people---people ready to face the truth, to admit that they didn't have the control that they thought they had."

  She leaned her back against the refrigerator, legs akimbo, looking more like a stunned teenager than the imposing, matronly woman I had known. "That's why I couldn't see that book for years," she added. "I was open to ideas the first time I found it. When my mind closed up, the book became invisible to me. All these years..." She shook her head as realization lit her eyes. "I could have done something about these problems. Oh, Goddess, Sorcha..." Suddenly Evelyn's composure completely abandoned her, and her face crumpled into a sob. "Sarah, your mother," she whimpered as her age finally seemed to show, "she had it, too. She stripped herself because she was frightened by her powers. Her telekinesis." Evelyn closed her eyes and sobbed again. "Oh, Goddess, I could have saved her..." I shook my head, reaching out to take her hand. "You didn't know," I said. "I should have," she whispered. "It was all there for me to put together. If I had been honest with her, if I had told her about what was happening to me instead of just pushing her away..." "You couldn't have known what she was planning," I said, squeezing her hand. "She was frightened, and she didn't tell you how deep her fears went." Evelyn sighed wearily. "I could see how frightened she was, I thought I could take care of Oona on my own." She looked me in the eye. "I pushed my daughter away," she concluded, wiping her eyes with the back of her hand. "And I lost her." She looked over at me, slowly regaining h
er composure. I opened my mouth to say something, but nothing came out. I was suddenly profoundly aware that I could pass on telekinesis to my daughter, if I ever had one. Looking at Evelyn's tearstained face, I swore to myself that I would always be honest with my children. And open. "I'll have to tell them the truth," she said, sitting up straight again. "There is no Oona." "No," I said. "You were right. She was real, and she cast the spell that is affecting us." "I suppose," she replied. "All these years, I thought it was something entirely outside myself, something I could eventually control. But it was coming through me. It was always me." I could tell it was more than she could bear. "The Seeker," she said, "he's working with a chaos specialist in London to find a remedy?" "A chaos speicalist?"

  "That's what someone who specializes in uncontrollable magick is called." She smiled wryly. "Yes," I answered, slightly chilled by the term chaos specialist. That had a really bad sound to it. Hunter had obviously been trying to be delicate. "He is." "Well, then," she said. "I suppose we'll have to see what he comes up with." She pulled herself

  off the floor, moving stiffly.

  "I'm not going to tell anyone up here about this," I said as i watched her. "I'm only going to tell some people in my coven and that man Ardán. This can just be between us. We'll tell them that we found something to bring Oona partially under control." Evelyn's eyes looked pale and red rimmed in the sunlight from the window. She turned to me. For the first time I felt something coming from her, something warm. "Thank you," she said simply.

  "I should go," I said, gathering up my things. "I mean... I should rest before the circle." Evelyn nodded and put her hand on my shoulder as she walked me to the front door. "Have a good rest, Alisa. And thank you." She looked me in the eye. "I am very lucky you chose to visit."

  "You're welcome," I whispered, and walked slowly down the front steps and along the road to Sam's house. I wasn't very tired. I just thought Evelyn needed some time alone. She's just learned some serious things about my mother and her leaving, and I knew it would take her a long time to come to terms with them.

  I she ever did.

  17. Mermaid

  November 14, Sorcha has been gone for one month. Hugh and I have decided that we will not scry for her anymore. She is gone.

  Somhairle raged when we told him of our decision. He screamed. He threatened to leave as well, to go and find her himself. Then he stormed out of the house to walk off some of his anger. Soon, I think, his emotions will regulate themselves and he will understand. Sorcha has willingly given up her power. She has refused the blessing of the Goddess and turned her back on her heritage. When a witch is stripped, it is understood: No longer shall that witch be one of us. Sorcha made it easier for everyone by taking herself away. While I know what I must do, and while I know I am right, my heart is broken. I feel hollow, as if a hole has been drilled in me and all feeling has gone forever. Hugh looks gray, and I worry about his health. This has taken a great toll on him. After Somhairle left, we heard noise upstairs in Sorcha's room. We found her quilt in shreds, her books on the ground, and her bedroom window broken. Hugh and I stood there, looking at each other, unable to express the blackness that has taken over our lives. ___Aoibheann

  We met at Evelyn's at eight o'clock. Kate and Charlie's dad were in the hallway talking, waiting for the bathroom so that they could change into their robes. Evelyn swished down the hall from the direction of the kitchen, elegant in a long purple robe with wide, sweeping sleeves. She had a beautiful silver pentacle around her neck. She came right for me, her face serene, and kissed my forehead. I noticed that stopped the conversation Kate and Sam had started. I don't think Charlie's dad noticed anything. "Come with me for a minute, Alisa," Evelyn said, drawing me into the study and shutting the doors behind us.

  On her desk there was a large, dusty old box. She walked around to it and opened the limp flaps at the top.

  "It's time these saw the light of day again," she said, looking down into the contents. She seemed lost in whatever it was she was looking at; then she waved me over and pushed the

  box toward me.

  "These are for you," she said.

  Inside, there was a bundle of purple cloth. I had scried this! A box, something purple! Eagerly I opened the bundle. As I dipped my hands into the folds I got a sharp spark of electricity and drew my hand back. Evelyn nodded for me to continue, so I reached in again. My hand hit something smooth and flat. I pulled it out. It was a ceramic plate, handmade---very seventies, crafty looking, with a pentagram thickly drawn into the surface. I reached in again and produced a chalice, silver, with a stem made of figures of the moon and stars. A chunk of quartz wrapped in yellow silk. A bolline---the white-handled work knife used to prepare herbs and other magickal elements. Many of these items sat in the small cauldron, which I had to pull out with both hands.

  These were my mother's things. They warmed my hands as I touched them. I looked up at Evelyn, unable to speak.

  "There's something else," she said, nodding for me to reach in once again. At the bottom of the bundle there was a pale green linen robe, finely embroidered with runes. "She made this by hand," said Evelyn, running her fingers over the embroidery. "Every stitch is sacred."

  I picked it up, but it was surprisingly heavy. Something was wrapped inside. As I unfolded it, I saw a glint of metal. I drew in my breath in surprise. "Does it look familiar?" Evelyn said, watching me with glistening eyes. It was an athame with a bright silver handle. It was cast in the shape of a mermaid---a steel gray mermaid.

  I ran my hand over the sculpted handle, tears welling up behind my eyes. The mermaid--- this was what had been calling me here, and now I had it. The athame was beautiful, and it was my mother's. I imagined her holding it in her hand, wearing the light green robe as she worked some beautiful magick. Before the storm. Before everything changed for her. I looked back at Evelyn as a few tears began to slip down my face. "I can't believe it," I whispered. "The Goddess often speaks to us in our dreams," she said. Evelyn instructed me to remove all of my clothing, even my underwear, before putting on the robe. I thought this would make me very cold, especially with those seaside breezes blowing all over the place, but I was comfortable in the fine linen. The fit was perfect---my mother and I must have been the exact same height. Standing there in my robe and holding the athame, my bare feet on the cool nighttime grass, I felt so witchy... and so natural. The house had a large backyard, which I hadn't seen before. It was surrounded on all sides by trees, so we were in a safe little grotto for the circle. White lights had been strung around, making the scene romantic. The large cauldron contained a sweet smelling fire, laced with herbs and fragrant wood. I took my place in the opening of the group, besides Sam, who looked quite dashing in his crimson silk robe. Charlie stood just opposite me, looking amazing in a pale yellow robe. He nodded slightly but approvingly in my direction. Evelyn stepped forward and presented the four elements---the candle, the incense, the bowl of water, and the dish of sea salt.

  "Alisa," she said, "if you would please bring out your athame, I would like you to cast the circle." She held out a bowl of water and indicated that I should dip my athame in it. When I had done so, she placed the elements in their respective quarters and nodded for me to begin. I'd never actually done this before, so I was a bit nervous. You're supposed to try make the circle as perfectly round as possible. Using my right hand, I held the athame out in front of me. Walking deasil around the group, I concentrated on feeling its power, and I visualized the wall of energy that I was drawing. Automatically I started to speak, not really knowing where I had found the invocation. I supposed maybe I'd read it somewhere, but it came out of me naturally, as if I was saying my own name: "I conjure you, circle, to be a protected space, boring down through the earth and rising into the sky. I cast out from you all that is impure. Within your protective embrace, may we honor the Goddess and God." Evelyn smiled, and I took my place. I saw quite a number of surprised glances Ping-Ponging between Evelyn and me. The circle was
very peaceful---no busted pipes, no floods. When it was over, everyone headed for a table that had been set up next to the house. There were

  cookies, brownies, and little bowls of milk and rosewater pudding decorated with rose petals.

  Someone switched on some Celtic music. I stayed with Sam most of the time, chatting with Kate---but I was really scanning the yard for Charlie. He vanished into thin air the moment the circle was over.

  When I was alone for a minute by the table, Brigid approached me, reaching past me for an oatcake. I felt a chilly, brittle energy coming from her. "Hi," I said. "This circle---it was great. It was beautiful." She picked through all of the cakes very deliberately before choosing one. At last she looked up at me. "You saved Charlie last night. Thank you." I opened my mouth to respond but quickly realized that I had no idea what to say. I didn't feel like I should be accepting things for something like that. Finally I just nodded. "I'm not happy about what's happened," she said, real sadness tearing at her voice, "but what you did was good."

  Having said her piece, she walked off. I saw her go into the house. "What happened?" I said out loud to no one in particular. I desperately wanted to find Charlie and ask, but his dad came up to me at that very moment. "I've checked my schedule," he said. "I didn't have a few full days." I had no idea what he was talking about. "I'm sorry?" I said. "You asked me if I had a few days to listen to your story," he explained. "I do, but not until June. Maybe we could speak on the phone instead. I'd like very much like to hear all about your experiences. Charlie's told me some, and I am absolutely fascinated." "Oh," I laughed. "Right. Sure."

  "Wonderful," he said, taking a dish of pudding. "Does Charlie have your phone number?" "I'll give it to him," I replied. "Have you seen him?" "Oh, yes," he said, peering around the yard. "He's on one of the benches in the back." Far in the back of the yard, there was a small clump of four tall shrubs. In the middle of these was a tiny white stone bench, and on this bench was Charlie. As usual, my stomach twisted around completely.